The Fortunes Of War
by notresponsibility
Summary: Character thoughts/reactions on the deaths of Johnny and Dally, including Johnny and Dally themselves. I apologize for the shortness of the first chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I've got the first few chapters planned out for this, since I've had this idea in my head for four months, but after that, it depends on the inspiration level.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Outsiders.**

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God damn it, why couldn't I just die already?

It was worse than death, watching everything through this fog, barely clinging to life. I was certain of it. It was like the lights were on, but nobody was home. And to make matters even worse, I couldn't feel anything below the middle of my back. I was someone who has spent their entire life running, who has run as an escape, because I knew that when things got too crazy, I could hop up and bolt. To be confined this way, well, it's not a good feeling. I yearned every moment to be able to move, to stand, to fight- yes, fight. The rest of them were out there in the thick of it all, with that heady mix of terror and elation that made you feel like you were flying rushing in their blood. They weren't lying near death in a cold hospital room. They hadn't lost the will to live. They were free.

But I wasn't. I was the one retreating into his own mind, the only safe place left, to keep from losing it. But I thought it was a long-lost battle, although part of it was probably the medication they were giving me. Hazy and insane, my dreams never changed, assuming I could get to sleep, of course. In this sense, my dreams were really no different than when I was awake.

And I couldn't shake the feeling it was entirely my fault. I took a desperate gamble saving those kids, and I had lost. It was devastating.

I was also angry. For all that life is, shouldn't there be some sort of saving grace? If I could take a life, I could save a life- and if I could save a life, would this life save _me?_ Shouldn't it, after all…?

But it didn't. This was real. It was really happening. It was no use being scared, because I was going to find out what happens when you die. In the end, isn't it really the unknown we fear when our thoughts turn to death? And the people that _do_ know- well, I don't think they're going to tell us any time soon.

When I said "Fighting's no good," I wasn't sure exactly what I meant. I could've meant the gang fights and switchblades and violence that was a sad part of reality. Or I could've meant it was no use fighting this personal battle of mine. We all die, it's a fact of life. But there's nothing romantic about death, no matter what Shakespeare thought. My world had become nothing but pain now, and I was tired of living in it.

If I couldn't fight it... maybe it was time to face it, with confidence.

Maybe I was meant to know, so young, what it is to die.

My name is Johnny Cade.

And I am not afraid.

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**A/N2: This was a lot longer in my head. But then again, so is everything I write. I have a lot of trouble getting something to a thousand words, so I usually just try to be funny to take up space- kind of like what I'm doing right now. I will try to make next chapters longer, I promise.**

**Review!**

**P.S.: A "Project PULL" update.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I find it incredibly easy to write in Dally's point of view. I have no explanation as to why this is.**

**The line breaks are flashbacks. Except for the author's notes, obviously.**

**NOTE: This chapter has content that may be harmful to sensitive viewers (violence, self-harm, etc.), but I don't think it's too bad. I'm putting this out there just in case.**

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Why do people always say "Life is short"? It's the longest damn thing you're ever gonna do.

For me, life might've been short- but I'd already lived a lifetime. Maybe it wasn't a lifetime of contentment. Maybe I had grown up too fast, been robbed of my childhood. But make no mistake, It was _my_ life. It made me strong. It made me who I was. And I'd _had_ to grow up fast. It's just the way it was, and I didn't question it.

But as for what I did, it was out of weakness. I acted out of anger. Out of fear. What exactly I was afraid of, I wasn't certain. It clouded my thoughts, it was almost past endurance, and I wanted it to end. One way or another.

And you know they say when you're about to die your life flashes before your eyes?

Yeah. That's actually true.

Weird.

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_I grew up on the streets of New York until I was about ten. (I think. It wasn't all that important to me.) All over the city, you'd always hear stories about the thugs who would slit your throat just to get your wallet. Whatever you did, you couldn't hide from these guys. No matter where you went in the strange subculture of thieves and homeless people, or just regular people with nowhere to go, which I guess is the same thing. If they wanted you, they would get you. And they would hurt you._

_And then there were the supposedly "heroic" stories about the cops, the fuzz, the boys in blue, who would always catch the bad guys and save the day. But me? Even as a kid, I knew not to put too much trust in the police. They never caught the real criminals, because the real criminals didn't want to be caught. I guess that's why a ten year old boy was rudely slammed into a wall with a knife at his throat. It was my first real look at what this world would do to me if I let it. Apparently, it would let an uncontrolled, obviously drunk man press a blade to my neck, punch me in the stomach, and hiss, "I'm going to kill you."_

_Do you see what I mean now? The police were not the heroes here. They did nothing to help me. My survival that night was a fluke. I shouldn't have lived, but I did. The man's grip suddenly slackened and his knife slid from his fingers. In the dim light from a street lamp I saw the look of shock and pain on his face. I didn't stop to think what that meant, I just pushed him off me and ran, pausing only to look over my shoulder for an instant, where I saw the man collapse with a bloody slash in the back of his shirt. Another random act of violence in the lawless underworld of New York City._

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This was what life did to you, I thought. No matter what you did, this was what happened. You could be a murderer, or a saint. It made no difference. Johnny chose to save those kids, and that made him a better man than I ever could be. And yet here I was, seeing my best friend die. Totally beyond my control. Nothing I could do but watch, as his final breath hissed from his lips, as he left his friends, left his world… left _me._

My head spun. It seemed impossible to breathe. My mind flashed to a million different thoughts, each more desperate than the last, and a million dead ends, trying to find an explanation besides what I already knew- saw proof of in front of me- trying to find a reason for why my senses must be lying- until it locked onto one unshakable thought:

_No._

No, no, no…

It seemed almost _poetic._ I turned and hammered the wall once, twice, three times. _No! No! No!_

Next thing I knew, I was bursting through the glass doors and running, just running, away from Johnny, away from my memories- away, perhaps, even from sanity itself- the sound of my feet pounding the pavement echoing in my ears like a funeral march.

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_Do you want to know why people put up with abuse? It's because they don't think they can fight back. It makes you feel weak. Powerless. Controlled._

_I used to believe that I was, too. After all, what could one twelve-year-old kid do to a fully grown, six-foot-tall man after a heavy night of drinking?_

_Yeah. That's what I thought._

_So I put up with it. I thought it would make me tough or something. Until, of course, he started coming at me with a switchblade. That was the night everything changed._

_My dad- my own dad- threw a punch at my face that caught me square on my cheek and sent me stumbling backward. I regained my balance, though the letter "f" was involved liberally, in enough time to see a flash of steel and instantly my arm seared with pain. It shocked me into action and I swung back blindly, wildly, and I heard a sickening crunch. My dad fell back, colliding with the wall in the process, emitting a stream of obscenities, one hand covering his nose._

_He glared up at me from the floor, and the fire in his eyes said it all: _Run, or I'll kill you myself.

_So I ran. It was the only thing left to do._

_As I stopped a few blocks away to catch my breath and look at the cut on my arm (which fortunately wasn't very deep), I realized I felt… good. Powerful. Strong. And slowly it dawned on me… I wasn't at his mercy. I _could_ fight back. And I _would._ I'd make it so nothing could ever hurt me again._

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But I had gotten hurt. I did the same I told myself I'd never do, and it'd cost me… what, exactly? Something was missing, but I couldn't tell what it was. Me being in the state that I was, the answer remained maddeningly elusive. What I wouldn't have given to see Johnny one last time, he could've helped me...

Then I decided.

It would cost me my life.

Dramatic, I know.

But if I wanted to see Johnny again... You get the idea.

While I was alive, I still couldn't escape the whirlwind of emotions- anger, fear, shock, sadness, although that was probably an understatement- you name it.

Some deep, treacherous part of me wanted to cling to my memories. Memories that were almost too painful to bear now.

The day I met Johnny.

The night I spent in the Curtis' bathroom, puking up painkillers because I'd been too afraid to take enough to actually kill myself.

The time Johnny got jumped and beaten up so badly- the day I swore I'd never let something like that happen to him again. Look how well that turned out.

Every time I'd ever thought of Johnny as the brother I never had.

And suddenly I was standing under a streetlight, a gun held loosely in my hand, hearing bullets whistling towards me- oddly enough, there was something comforting in the sound, since I knew that at some point this was exactly what I wanted- and every bit of sense I had left was urging me, screaming at me, to think of my friends- my gang- my family almost- telling me that-

_I._

_Should._

_Care._

But I didn't.

I almost welcomed the oncoming oblivion. The promise of feeling nothing at all.

My name is Dallas Winston.

I guess you could say I died of a broken heart.

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**A/N2: A "Project PULL" update. (Bookaholic711)**

**Reviews are love!**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: My first draft of this is terrible and my friend/editor/beta/whatever agrees, so I'm basically ad-libbing here. I think it turned out okay, though.**

**Let's see...**

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They seemed to me to be the perfect pair. They came from similar backgrounds, yet no two people could ever be so different. They were connected, somehow, and somehow they balanced each other out. One was wild, impulsive, angry, the other was quiet, elusive, scared. And never in a million years would it have ever crossed my mind that the other one- _the wrong one_- would be the one to pay the steepest price for doing something crazy and dangerous and stupid and incredibly brave, and the opposite would survive with barely a scratch.

And what did he tell you, Johnny Cade, before you jumped into that fire?

"_Don't end up like me."_

How in the world is it justified that someone should die for being so selfless? Did he regret, in his final moments, acting the hero? Was he as scared as he was in life- or was he fighting it tooth and nail? Or willing to go forward and, again, be braver than any of us? Does it hurt when you die, Johnny? Where are you, anyway? Do you really see a white light?

Is Dallas there with you?

Do you know what happened to him? What he did to himself, to the rest of us? Do you know what _you_ did to us, Johnny?

I know, it's stupid of me to be asking myself all these questions. It's not like someone's actually going to answer them.

And yet… Sometimes it's impossible to keep myself from asking questions. Sometimes they just slip into my thoughts, unwanted, and it feels like when I'm questioning myself, or anyone really, looking desperately for the answers because it's just one more little thing that makes it that much easier to cope with, that everything seems so much more precarious than before, like if I keep on doing this, I could either win and find my answer, or I could lose- like Dallas lost. If the most dependable things in a person's life can be yanked away so quickly, is _anything_ safe? Is anything really built to last?

And inevitably, my thoughts would go to my friends. My _dead _friends. And every time they do, it's as if I'm encroaching on something… _sacred. _Like if I made the smallest inquiry into my own mind everything I thought I knew about some of the most important people in my life would come crashing down, and the ground beneath my feet would swing away, and I'd be falling…

It's not a good place to be.

If only I could relive my memories of the people who I feel deserted me without my restless conscience trying to torture me or something, then maybe I would realize that I should treasure them anyway, because they are all I have left. They're all anyone has left, now. And I would likely discover that it's probably a good thing that what I remember is of them so inseparable.

They weren't really "best friends", because greasers don't have those. We're just one collective group, and if we choose favorites we'll just end up at each other's throats. But if it was anyone else in our gang who'd died, it would have been different. I hate to say it, but I know it would have. Dally just didn't care about that many people, and I think that feeling was reflected back at him. Ultimately, I think that was his downfall, since no one- not even Johnny- really tried to find the smallest spark of decency inside him. He was who he was, and no one tried to change him and while that's usually a good thing, now it seems like that's the greatest tragedy of all.

But not even Dally could stay indifferent to Johnny. Oh, sure, he tried in the beginning. But eventually he became Dallas's only real friend, even if Dallas himself never thought of him that way. It was sort of like Johnny gave Dallas a reason to fight so hard. I can't describe it. Nobody can.

Because the only people who would ever really understand what their friendship meant are gone. And no amount of me questioning myself would ever bring them back, would ever allow me to understand in such a way that I would finally be safe. Safe from falling. Safe from doing the same selfish thing Dally did.

Did he really think it was worth taking his own life? Did he truly believe that no one else in the world would even notice he was gone? Would miss him?

_Because we do, Dallas. Every day._

The least he could've done was go to his friend's funeral. But he didn't, he didn't and I wonder if I should hate him for that, the same way he hated _everything._

I wish I could hate him too, Johnny, I mean, hate him for ever starting this whole thing by picking up a blade and putting blood on his hands, but he saved my brother's life on the same night and because of that he means the world to me. So I can't hate him. It's all so messed up. All of it, out of nowhere. None of us asked for this, especially not on you...

I mean, is it revenge? An eye for an eye? But an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind…

I guess it makes sense that they would die on the same day. Through most of life's twists and turns, they've been there for each other, and maybe Dally thought that it would be his last major accomplishment to be there with Johnny, wherever they are. I like to think that they are in a much better place than the worlds they grew up in, places with happy memories for both of them, if ever there were any. Call me crazy, but maybe they've earned it. I don't think, after all, that it's so easy to die. Or maybe Dally thought that if the one person he cared about quit, gave up, passed away- whatever you want to call it- then it just might be okay for him, too.

Did Johnny and Dally want the rest of us to keep calm and carry on? Did they expect us to be stronger than they were?

But I don't really think it matters, not anymore. Maybe there is some good in pondering these things. Because, how can you find the answers if you don't know the question?

My name is Sodapop Curtis.

Sometimes asking the right question is precisely the answer.

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**A/N2: A "Project PULL" update (bookaholic711)**

**Happy (late) Thanksgiving!**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Fun fact: the technical term for Writer's Block is "graphospasm". I told this to my friend and she stated approvingly that this term is very logical.**

**Anyway. Onwards.**

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I lose a dream when I don't sleep. And isn't that stupid, because none of it's real anyway. Stupid, because I won't even remember when I wake up.

Sometimes I wonder if everything is just a dream. Just a bad dream. I thought so when my parents died, except maybe "bitterly wished" is the right phrase. And at their funeral… I had desperately hoped that my own mind would let me wake up soon. Of course, I didn't tell anyone, I mean, how do you tell someone if even you don't know what you mean? And even if I'd wanted to, I wouldn't have. Had to keep it together, if not for my sake than for my brothers. I was supposed to. Expected to. They depended on me. I wouldn't let them down, not now. Hopefully, not ever.

Sometimes it seems so much like some surreal hallucination that at times, it's almost impossible to distinguish between real life and my own Wonderland from hell.

Whenever I'd close my eyes, I'd keep seeing that same night, over and over, of Dallas standing under that streetlight, his wide, wild eyes burning blue with a fury that was rivaled by none. I'd hear the same sounds, the worst sounds- the gunshots that exploded in the still, quiet air, the fear-filled shouts from my gang that pierced me like knives, knowing none of us could do a damn thing to stop him, because somehow we all knew what he was doing before it happened- and for an instant, as the night caught fire I'd see a single tear had traced his cheek.

The same strange mix of emotions, each time. The anger. The shock. The guilt.

Guilt…

I should have dragged him back out of the way of those bullets. Even if he hated me, even if his own death was what he wanted, I shouldn't have let it happen. Would've been better for all of us. Should've told him just to keep calm and think for a second. But Dallas Winston always got what he wanted, and that's why he was shot down like a dog in the streets. Would've been better if even one person didn't have to replay it in their head a thousand times over of tough, hoodish Dally sinking to the ground with a look of triumph- _triumph_- on his face, the look of a man who had resorted to his last, best hope, his blood spilling onto the dirt he rested on and over his pale fingers pressed against his chest as if you could see his heartbeat slowing, the breath catching in his throat. Your hands grasping at your own chest as if the bullets had torn through you instead. The smell of gunpowder stinging your nose. Gunshots too deafeningly loud. Blood too shockingly scarlet.

Too much blood.

Way too much blood.

Impossible.

Jarring.

Insane.

Just like everything else.

But, I guess that's just the way it is. You grapple with death, you lose. Even if you're surrounded by people who care about you, the loss of that one person sometimes pushes you over the edge anyway. Leads your mind to a real bad place and when you're there, you do some stupid stuff. Think scary things that you can't tell anyone, because if you do they'll slam you into an insane asylum fast as anything you've ever seen before- and even if you could tell, you don't want to because it's _yours_, something to hold onto, like a small piece of what you feel you've become, like if you keep this part of you it's the only thing stopping you from being completely numb.

The way it's always been. Doesn't matter if you love it or hate it, because it don't change a thing. It just _is. _I simply never noticed before, didn't need to. I had my friends. I had what was left of my family. As long as they were okay, I didn't have to deal with any concept larger than that.

But now, they're not okay. And they weren't okay. And I feel guilty because I should have seen that. I couldn't believe it took Johnny dying to make me realize how much they all mean, to me at least. I think, somewhere in the backs of our minds, we all knew Johnny wasn't going to make it and maybe it's better that way. Even death would be better than being restricted to a wheelchair for the rest of your life. Johnny was a real good kid. He didn't deserve that. It just goes to show you, sometimes the worst of things happen to the best of people. And that's not real fair but hey, what the hell are you gonna do about it? When justice eludes you, it's just the fortunes of war. Wouldn't things have been different had Johnny known the consequences of that one impulsive decision… But then, would he have killed to save a life? The life of his best friend over the lives of innocent kids?

I just hope that those kids know they're alive because of him. And to make sure that he didn't die for nothing, he died to save them and they should honor that, but they don't even know him. And now they never will. They'll never know the sacrifice he made, just on an instinct, to save people he thought had a better chance at a bright future than he ever did.

And they'll never know the pain that one selfless act caused another person, one who we thought was cold and totally distant. Pain enough to end his life in a blaze of fire and bullets. Shows how well I knew my own friends. The people who are irreplaceable. One who thought he did good in the end, and one who took himself away as a permanent solution to an impulse.

Sometimes, the people who seem the most indifferent or uncaring, the most improbable of people, are the ones who truly hurt the most.

My name is Darrel Curtis.

I thought it was all just a nightmare.

But I guess it was true.

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**A/N2: A Project PULL update (bookaholic711)**

**Review!**


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